Word: budgets
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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During his presidential campaign, Collor hammered away at the antigovernment, antibureaucracy theme. He promised to privatize many of Brazil's oversize state industries, strip away excessive layers of government staffing, crack down on waste and corruption, bring the federal budget in line with reality and reduce inflation to 3% a month -- low by Brazilian standards. He also promised to spend $94 billion on housing, education and health services for the poor. Collor's resulting popularity among the country's shirt-sleeved masses, declared a bitter Lula, is undeserved. The President- elect, he predicted, "will govern in favor of big business...
...national product doubled during the 1980s, from $2.7 trillion to $5.3 trillion. The bad news is that much of this was done by borrowing. The national debt tripled, from $909 billion to almost $2.9 trillion (interest alone now amounts to $165 billion a year, roughly the equivalent of the budget deficit). Corporate and personal debts both soared. All in all, the U.S. consumed $1 trillion more than it produced in goods and services...
...good news is that the Berlin Wall has crumbled, and the cold war seems to be over. That offers the possibility of immense cuts in the $300 billion defense budget and immense investment opportunities in Eastern Europe. The bad news for Americans is that the Pentagon is still clinging to every dollar, and the investors pouring into Eastern Europe are mainly the West Europeans, who are in the process of uniting into an economic superpower...